Courtesy Photo | Pfc. Walter Sweet, cannoneer, Charlie Battery, 1st Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment,...... read more read more
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POHAKULOA TRAINING AREA, Hawaii - Marines of Charlie Battery, 1st Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment, III Marine Division, conducted live fire of the Expeditionary Fire Support System M327 120mm mortar here for the first time, Aug. 23.
The EFSS was employed in training by III Marine Division artillery unit for the first time during Exercise Spartan Fury 12.2. This weapon system seeks to improve the overall capability of Marine expeditionary warfare in indirect fire with the EFSS.
“We purchased this weapon so we have a light enough system to do amphibious operations and expeditionary operation,” said Maj. Philip Stauffacher, the fielding and operations support team leader. “We can transport this system internal with the MV-22 (Osprey), the CH-53 (Super Stallion), the Army’s CH-47 (Chinook), and the AAVP7A1 (Amphibious Assault Vehicle).”
This weapon system completes short-range and high mobility section of the “Triad of Fires,” as opposed to the longer ranged systems that include rockets and larger artillery, said Stauffacher. These weapons-system classes each compliment each other to provide a full battlefield capability in artillery, that none could do on its own, he said.
Before the EFSS can be successfully employed in future Marine Corps combat situations, Marines must first train to master it. Stauffacher, along with the New Equipment Training team came from Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., were on site to assist Charlie Battery with the assimilation of this new weapon.
Stauffacher and Capt. Jason Grim, battery commander of Charlie Battery, both said the new semi-fixed ammunition, sights and employment style present a situation where Charlie Battery Marines have to turn to their “artillery roots” to employ this slick artillery. The Marines carry a smaller gun, smaller gear load, and use smaller Internally Transportable Vehicles, which are a fraction of the size of a Humvee but retains much of the Humvee’s capability characteristics for transporting the French-derived EFSS, they said.
Charlie Battery conducted numerous training events in prior weeks with Reconnaissance Selection Occupation Position training that takes them through a dry-fire regiment of emplacing, prepping and displacing the EFSS numerous times, until their live-fire shoot Aug. 23.
“It’s a new system with a lot of unknowns for us, and that’s where this training is answering those questions,” Grim, the native of York, Penn., said. The Marines were excited, and the firing of the EFSS was successful in preparing these Marines for “72 hours of shoot, move and communicate,” he said in reference to the relatively short time frame of the EFSS employment.
The EFSS was well received by the sections that employed it here. In addition to the reduction in the size of the EFSS system hardware, the weapons system requires less manpower to employ it effectively.
“It’s lighter and faster in its iron sights, and it takes less men,” said Sgt. Albert Camacho, a section chief with Charlie Battery. “It takes a minimum of three Marines to be fire-capable, as oppose to seven Marines for the (M)777 (Howitzer).”
Grim said that the standard for a section on the EFSS is five Marines; one section chief, one gunner and three cannoneers. They are mobile on two ITVs and fit the role of the Marine expeditionary units nicely, he said.
“You don’t have to do a six-gun movement,” Camacho said. “You can employ a section on its own … It gives us the ability to move freely, to get in those tight gaps that we didn’t have before.”
| Date Taken: | 08.23.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 08.30.2012 02:04 |
| Story ID: | 94013 |
| Location: | POHAKULOA TRAINING AREA, HI, US |
| Web Views: | 343 |
| Downloads: | 3 |
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